Dark Imperium Primaris Intercessors

Squad leader interrupted during his toilet break.

So the first five Primaris Intercessors from the Dark Imperium boxed set are done, including company and squad markings. These are decals - more on that in a moment.

There's really not too much to note painting-wise. Nothing that hasn't been written down before, but a short summary wouldn't go astray.

Utility pouches:

• Eshin Grey around the belt and drybrushed onto pouches.
• Dawnstone drybrushed onto pouches.
• Nuln Oil applied to pouches.
• Leadbelcher on the clasps.

Sidearm holster:

• Rhinox Hide
• Sylvaneth Bark drybrushed over the top.
• Lamenter's Yellow glazed over it all.
• Bloodletter glazed over that.
• Agrax Earthshade to darken it down again.
• Leadbelcher for the clasps.

Chestpiece:

• Black (duh).
• Dark Reaper along the edges of the "feathers", and the center skull.
• Russ Grey as further edge highlights.
• Nuln Oil to add some contrast back in, or darken as necessary.

Black armour & gun casing:

• Black (again, duh).
• Eshin Grey to highlight as appropriate.
• Dawnstone for very sharp edges.
• Thinned black to blend it all together as necessary (because highlighting black is hard).

Red armour:

• 50/50 mix of Mephiston Red and Dryad Bark
• Mephiston Red
• Evil Sunz Scarlet.
• Wild Rider Red for extreme edge highlights, if needed, but it was very, very rarely used here.

Eye lenses:

• Caliban Green
• Warpstone Glow
• Moot Green
• Coelia Greenshade around the edges
• Nuln Oil if it should be darker yet
• Dot of White Scar (although I may leave this out in future - it's too easy to mess up basically).

Last note is another bit of improvement to working with decals. Normally there are a couple of problems with them: creases over curved surfaces, and gloss finish that doesn't match the rest of the model. The latter is fixed somewhat with a satin varnish (i.e Purity Seal), and creases can be alleviated with a few careful cuts before soaking the transfer. It still never ends up quite proper.
So based on a bit of Internet reading, there are various products to help with transfers, in making them adhere to the model, and to make them more malleable to work with. Mostly these products are a solvent of some kind, which as it turns out is what air brush cleaner is. So I decided to apply a little bit of air brush cleaner with a paint brush and see if it would help. And it does. Creases basically disappear, the edging around the transfer (most have a kind of transparent border around them) fades away, and most of the gloss is removed as well. A spray of Purity Seal and it's basically indistinguishable from the paintwork.
I did try a bit of Lahmian Medium before adding the solvent, but that actually hinders things a little. Just have to be careful with how much solvent to use - don't want to go stripping paint off. The photo pretty much speaks for itself though - I can actually be confident in using transfers now.
I've used the word "solvent" because I'm not entirely sure of the exact chemical inside the cleaner (other than that it's really obviously toxic and flammable), but it's probably available cheaply at art & craft stores, or home hardware stores. Regardless, works really well.

-- silly painter.